Father daughter relationship crucial to when girls enter puberty

Father Daughter Relationships

Father daughter relationship and puberty

In the September 2002 issue of North & South magazine, Deborah Coddington reported on research undertaken by Dr Bruce Ellis, senior lecturer in psychology at Canterbury University into the father daughter relationship. Dr Ellis has in his studies of the father daughter relationship,found that girls whose fathers are closely involved with their lives and have a positive relationship with the girl's mother, enter puberty later. He has also found that "father involvement was most predictive for late puberty in girls if it took place before age five".

In other words,in the absence of the father daughter relationship, without Dad, little girls grow up too quickly. Ellis' research could explain why some girls in Western countries are going through puberty much earlier - instead of blaming hormones in chickens and beef, perhaps it's plain old parenting where the the father daughter relationship is decisive according to this research.

Ellis' research also offers an additional explanation as to why girls who grow up in sole mother households where is the father daughter relationship, have a high teenage pregnancy rate. If Dad is around to tell them how beautiful the are, how smart and clever, they'll delay their first sexual experience longer than girls who grow up without that positive reinforcement because of the affirmation provided by dad in the father daughter relationship.

A young girl's relationship with her family, especially with her father, may influence at what age she enters puberty according tothis study into the father daughter relationship affect upon a girl's development.

Girls with close, supportive relationships with their parents tend to develop later, while girls with cold or distant relationships with their parents develop at an earlier age. This is particularly true is eems in the father daughter relationship where the father is either absent is a 'distant figure.

The study of the influence of the father daughter relationship, looked at 173 girls and their families from Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn. and Bloomington, Ind. from the time the girls were in pre-kindergarten until they were in the seventh grade.

Girls who had close, positive relationships with their parents during the first five years of life tended to experience relatively late puberty, compared to girls who had more distant relationships with their parents. More specifically, the researchers found that the quality of fathers' involvement with daughters was the most important feature of the early family environment in relation to the timing of the daughters' puberty. Thus the father daughter relationship played a significant role in the daughter's maturation in womanhood.

Girls who enter puberty later generally had fathers who were active participants in care-giving; had fathers who were supportive to the girls' mothers; and had positive relationships with their mothers thus affirming the vital significance of the father daughter relationship. But it's the fathers' involvement, rather than the mothers', which seems to be paramount to the age of the girls' development. The researchers believe that girls have evolved to experience early socialization, with their "antennae" tuned to the fathers' role in the family (both in terms of father-daughter and father-mother relationships) and that girls may unconsciously adjust their timing of puberty based on their fathers' behavior. If the father is absent then there is a negative outcome produced by the non existence of the father daughter relationship. A fathers absence is not a neutral influence on daughers, it is detrimental it seems. The father daughter relationship is a biolgical imperative.

The researchers found that girls raised in father-absent homes or dysfunctional father-present homes experienced relatively early pubertal timing.

They present several theories associated with the father daughter relationship, as to why this occurs. One biological explanation is that girls whose fathers are not present in the home may be exposed to other adult males. stepfathers or their mothers' boyfriends. and that exposure to pheromones produced by unrelated adult males accelerates female pubertal development. The flip side of that theory of the father daughter relationship, is that girls who live with their biological fathers in a positive environment are exposed to his pheromones and are inhibited from puberty, perhaps as a natural incest avoidance mechanism. Thus within natural the father daughter relationship within the family, girls benefit from his presence by being less likely to be victims of teenage pregnancy it seems.

Girls who live with their fathers in a father daughter relationship that is cold or distant relationship, would not be exposed to their fathers' pheromones as much as girls who have more interaction with their fathers, therefore causing the girls in the distant relationship to reach puberty earlier, the researchers hypothesize. The physical presence of the father has far more influence on the family then ever imagined and it is the father daughter relationship that powerfully inhibits the daughter's sexual dvelopment.

Perhaps most notable, the researchers say this debate on the father daughter relationship, is the important role fathers seem to play in their daughters' development, given that the quality of mothering is generally more closely associated with how children turn out than is the quality of fathering.

The father daughter relationship as a family phenomena rather than being undervalued needs to be reassessed and recognised as a determing factor, as far as the research hypothisises in hastening or retarding a girls entry into womanhood.